Chapter Text
You look at yourself in the rear view mirror once you put your car in park. Not bad you must say so. You check your watch, only half way through lunch, that was quick. You pick up a brown paper bag and and step out of your car, you press the lock button twice till your car goes off . Satisfied, you hand the lanyard of your keys around your neck and head towards the middle of your high school campus.
You knock on the door to the office of your favorite teacher.
“What’s up?” He stood opened the door, making you realize how much taller he really is.
“You said you couldn’t find your wallet so I brought you food.” You set the paper bag on his desk and pull out a burrito, carefully checking if it’s yours or not.
“You didn’t have-“
“Dude it’s fine.”
“It’s mister Dude to you.”
You roll your eyes and laugh. “Whatever Galvino.”
“Where you off to now (y/n)?”
“Gonna see who else I can bother”
As you wave off Mr. Galvin you head to your usual spot with your friends, under the giant Redwood tree. Close enough to the parking lots and the Quad.
As you head to the tree you can see a lot of your friends already made it back from going out to get food for lunch, you already know that they’re going to bash you for being late. You say hello to everyone: Signe, Amy, Matt, Mark, Ethan, Seán, Kat, and Tyler. Last but not least you greet your boyfriend of two years, Andrew. You had Calculus with Amy and Matt, music with Seán, English with Kat, weight training with Mark, Ethan and Signe, government with Tyler, and Chem with Ethan. Leaving your boyfriend to be the only one in the group you didn’t have a class with, but you two did your best with what you had, Andrew would try his best to walk you to each class but the man could only do so much.
“Look who’s late” Mark teases you.
“Whatever,” you say, “I dropped off some food for a teacher.” As you took a seat between Andrew and Ethan your keys jingled.
“So (y/n) we were talking about the homecoming dance coming up, you going.” Signe asked as she blew on her Chinese take out.
“I’ll think about it.”
Matt snorts. “She’s waiting for someone to ask her out, till then she won’t do registration,” he looks over at Andrew. “Soooooo, Andrewww is there something you should ask (y/n)?”
Andrew knows immediately what he’s hinting at but ignores the question. “Oh yeah, can I have some of your drink?”
You roll your eyes at Matt and hand your drink to Andrew.
The rest of lunch went smoothly, until Mark made everyone laugh so hard that Andrew spit out your drink right on you, right at the end of the lunch period.
“Holy crap (y/n) I’m so sorry, I’ll try to see if I have some spare clothes in my car-“ The bell to the end of lunch rang.
“-shit no I cleaned out my car two days again, but I’ll find something-“ Andrew was finding ways to help, but you just wanted the day to be over.
You take a deep breath “Andrew get to class.”
With his head down Andrew, Mark, and Matt make their way to class.
Ethan quickly ran to his car, which was the nearest to where you guys were, and pulled out some spare clothes for you.
A couple minutes later he hands you a black long sleeved shirt with a skull on the left breast.
“I usually wear this one for pajamas but it’ll do.”
You change out of your wet clothes, Ethan offers to put your dirty clothes in his car and you oblige. Just as Tyler, Amy, Seán, Kat, Signe, Ethan and you step on the quad the late bell for fifth period goes off.
“Great.” You say your good-byes to everyone and quickly head over to your government class with Tyler.
The end of sixth period chemistry is soon to come. You and Ethan finish up the end of your experiment.
“Are you upset with Andrew?” Ethan glanced at you slightly but focuses on the mixture.
“No, it was an honest mistake, I’ve just been having a hard day.”
Ethan looks at you in the eyes for the first time since lunch. He looks at his shirt in which you are wearing.
“Okay (y/n).” He went back to focusing on the mixture.
“Any plans for the weekend, Nestor?” You change the subject.
“Not unless you plan to make some with me.” He chuckled at himself. “You?”
You shake your head. “I’m going to the music room after school and that’s pretty much it.”
“Is Andrew going with you?”
“Andrew has sixth period off, so no. He’s most likely home by now.”
“Right..”
Once the two of you completely clean up your experiment you notice Ethan staring at you again. As the bell to the end of the school day goes off Ethan picks up his backpack, easily slips his arm through the straps and bids a farewell to you.
You leave the music room at 7pm, sundown. It got to the point where your music teacher began to ask if you were okay, if you were avoiding something. Questions were avoided and you headed to your car. You grabbed the handle to open your car and pulled it, locked. Okay that’s fine, just get your keys. You look around your jean pockets. Nope. You search through your backpack, you got desperate and poured your notebooks and folders out. Nothing. Ethan.
When Andrew spit on you, you had to take off your lanyard. You packed your junk back in your backpack and sat on the hot California asphalt, back against your car. You watch the sun begin to set as you bring your knees up to your chest. You close your eyes.
It’s days like this that make you want to never get up in the morning. Just lay in bed and waste away. You could hot wire your car and lock pick it, maybe break the window? Too expensive. You could call Andrew? Matt knew a few things about cars. Mark and Seán do sports maybe they’re still on campus? Signe lives a few streets away. Just waste away.
A slight breeze begins to come in as the young nights peaks it’s ugly head during sundown. You feel a soft push against the side of your car, a bit to your left. Your eyes shoot open, someone is going to murder you.
It’s Ethan, it’s just Ethan. His green and hazel eyes looked into yours and you burst out in tears.
Ethan brought his knees up to his chest and sat there with you. Your sobs would break the silence every so often.
After a while Ethan reached his arm out to you and held you in a tight embrace while sitting on the parking lot asphalt, just as night came.
Wrong person wrong time.
You could be at home right now, crying in the comfort of your room wearing your pajamas and an oversized shirt.
It could be Andrew holding you right now in a tight embrace telling you sweet nothings.
But life didn’t work like that. You weren’t home. You weren’t with Andrew. You were outside your car with Ethan.
After you collected yourself you realized what had just happened. You had broken down, something that hadn’t happened to you in a good while. You were going downhill again you thought to yourself. Waste away.
Ethan declared that you were in no condition to drive home. He took you to his car and drove you home instead. The drive was silent, the windows were down and the cool end of the summer breeze pushed through your hairs as you laid your head on the car door.
You felt like you finally broke. How the hell does one react to that.
Ethan’s car stops at a sudden red light. No other car is on the street though there are many people walking the street downtown in the hot LA night. Ethan decided to break the silence.
“Is Andrew allowed to know about this?” His voice was stiff.
“About what?” Your voice sounded groggy and caught you off guard.
“That I’ve seen you in your most vulnerable state, I highly doubt you even wanted me to see you break down.”
“Listen Nestor, I don’t really give a damn anymore. About this whole image thing, it’s a damn facade.” You run your fingers through your hair and turn away from him.
“Typical.”
“Typical what?” You still don’t look at him.
“The moment I think that you’re about to open up to me, you don’t. You take it all back and pretend all is right again. Tell me the truth (y/n), you’re not a facade, this Andrew thing is.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Ethan started to get irritated with your tone. “You don’t love Andrew! You feel like you have to! So your rude to everyone in hopes that Andrew will stay?! I don’t know! But this isn’t the You I met years ago! You changed and I don’t fucking get it.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about Nestor, get your nose out of other peoples shit!”
“I can’t when he fucking beats you! I can’t when I see the damn bruises and your tear stained face! You’re fucking scared like the rest of us so just fucking show it!”
You open the passenger car door and step out of Ethan’s car, dodging traffic.
He’s not an idiot after all.